Case Study, Advertising, Digital Media
The Oakland Mall
The Oakland Mall is a 1,500,000 square foot, super-regional indoor shopping center located in Troy, Michigan, with Macy’s and Dick’s Sporting Goods as its anchor stores, a food court, Starbuck’s plus other major franchise names. It is adjacent to the I-75 highway which provides easy access from every region in southeast Michigan. The Mall had been recently purchased. Its new owners needed support about the announcement of the purchase and their ideas and efforts to rebrand and re-energize the 54-year-old mall.
INSIGHT
The Oakland Mall’s new owners had innovative ideas to modernize the shopping center, and attract more shoppers. It would benefit from hiring Marx Layne, an outside agency with years of expertise in media relations and marketing. Marx Layne has strong experience in the retail sector, successfully achieving positive media results while working with many major malls in southeast Michigan throughout the agency’s 35-year history. While Oakland Mall was consistently a well–attended destination, the challenge the owners faced was that the older mall, once the only hub for shopping in the affluent area, had fierce competition including a large luxury shopping collection less than seven miles away, as well as consumer shift to online shopping.
STRATEGY
Marx Layne had less than 48 hours to strategize, plan, and execute an exciting and successful press conference inside the mall to attract every major TV, radio, print and digital media outlet, plus major lifestyle, and business bloggers. Marx Layne hired the audio-visual team, created a run-of-show, and drafted scripts and talking points for the mall’s new owners – ensuring cohesive brand messaging. We wrote and disseminated the press release to announce the news conference.
COMPAIN
Marx Layne’s media campaign for Oakland Mall was to quickly announce the sale and plans the new owners had for it– introducing them as successful, forward-thinking cutting-edge business leaders who would revitalize not only the beloved mall – but also the shopping district of the city where it’s located.
RESULTS
Marx Layne secured positive media coverage from every key newspaper, TV and radio station, business publication, and lifestyle blogger in the region. Every regional news outlet attended the press conference – crowding the Mall’s common area and creating a media frenzy, creating a lasting buzz. Marx Layne’s goal was achieved to create an impactful press conference to announce the sale of the mall – so that its new owners could control the messaging before the media heard of the sale elsewhere. Today, Oakland Mall has been elevated in the public eye again as a retail destination and the vacancy of the mall’s retail space is less than 10 percent.